Even in 1829 any "scholar" would have or should have been able to tell these "Caractors" bore no relationship with Aramaic/Assyriac or the Arabic alphabets. None of them were "unknown" in the west. Hebrew, a closely related language, was a subject of study in 18th and 19th century universities (I believe I read in his biography that John Adams studied it at Harvard). I studied Arabic in college and remember being able, about thirty years later, to understand bits of the Aramaic dialog Gibson used in Passion of the Christ. Many words in the languages are that close.

So "Professor Charles Anthon, a gentleman celebrated for his literary attainments" must have been as much an expert in Semitic languages as Al Gore is an authority on climate science. I have never understood how anyone could be gullible enough to believe in the teachings of Joseph Smith. But the same holds true for the followers of (in chronological order) Mohammed, L. Ron Hubbard, and Al Gore Jr. Combined there are between a billion and two poor souls on this planet who do and no amount of pointing out how utterly fraudulent these fellows were seems to have any effect on that belief. It's scary how easily misled humans really are and how fiercely they will defend utter and demonstrable nonsense.